


little moments, lifetimes

by zxanthe



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon - Manga, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, SoMa Week, Underage Drinking, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23990155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zxanthe/pseuds/zxanthe
Summary: A chronicle of falling in love.
Relationships: Crona & Soul Eater Evans, Maka Albarn & Soul Eater Evans, Maka Albarn/Soul Eater Evans
Comments: 22
Kudos: 151





	1. dare

The desert night is cold, but a strange, heady warmth suffuses her veins and keeps it at bay. Her head swims pleasantly – she’s never had alcohol before, and she didn’t think she ever would, but she’s Maka Albarn and she doesn’t back down from a dare. The taste of artificial strawberries lingers on her tongue, acrid and too-sweet. She doesn’t get how anyone could actually like this stuff.

“Tsubaki,” says Liz, pulling Maka out of her reverie. “Truth or dare?”

The other girl bites her lip. “Dare,” she replies, in her soft melodious voice. Maka wishes distantly she had a voice like that.

“You always pick that one,” Liz scoffs. “All right, why don’t you…take two shots and then do twenty pull-ups.”

“Laaaame,” says Black Star from his position on the floor, and then burps loudly.

“Excuse you,” says Maka, at the same time that Patty bursts into giggles and then matches him with a burp of her own.

“Patricia,” says Kid reprovingly.

“Scuuuuze me,” she chirps, and then bumps Black Star’s upside-down fist.

“Could I maybe, um…not take the shots?” Tsubaki asks, a note of hope in her voice.

“A dare’s a dare.” Liz shrugs, not looking up from her examination of her cuticles.

“It would ruin the sanctity of the game,” Kid adds helpfully.

Tsubaki sighs.

“Hey, that’s not a shot,” says Black Star. “C’mon, Tsu, do it _right_.”

Tsubaki takes two deliberate mouthfuls. Afterwards she coughs and grimaces before striding towards a low-hanging sign and pulling herself up over and over, braids swinging.

“Can _you_ do that many pullups?” Maka asks, turning to look at her weapon partner. He sits slouched on the lip of the wall beside her, staring out over the desert.

He turns at the sound of her voice. “Huh?”

She gestures with her chin towards Tsu, whose breathing has started to become a little labored. “That many pullups. Can you do them?”

Soul sits up a little straighter. “Sure. Yeah.”

“All right,” says Tsubaki. Her forehead gleams with sweat. “Twenty.” She strides back towards the group and folds, a little shakily, into a sitting position on Maka’s other side.

“That drink is disgusting,” she murmurs fervently. Maka reaches out and pats her sympathetically on one trembling shoulder.

“Your turn, sis,” says Liz, and elbows Patty gently. “Who d’you wanna pick?”

Patty taps a finger on her chin in thought, her wide blue eyes roaming around the group. They settle on Soul, and a positively _evil_ grin distorts her features. Maka barely suppresses a shudder.

“Soul!” Patty sings out. “Truth or dare?”

Soul squints suspiciously. “…Dare,” he says, after a few moments’ hesitation.

Patty claps her hands in delight. Wrong answer. Soul shifts uncomfortably.

“I dare _youuu,”_ Patty says, “to kiss Maka.”

The group’s focus sharpens. Heads turn, eyes darting from Patty to Soul and back again, with furtive looks at Maka. She can feel her face heating up a little at the attention. Soul’s eyes go wide and he proceeds to choke on his own spit. Maka pounds him hard on the back.

“What?” he asks, when he recovers. “That’s a stupid dare. Why would you ask me to do _that?”_

“You can take a drink first if you need to,” says Patty innocently.

Maka glares. “Hey, I’m not _that_ ugly.”

“You don’t have – “ Tsubaki begins, at the same time that Kid starts speaking. “Patricia, that dare is hardly appropriate – “

Patty shooshes them both with waves of her hands. Her eyes dart between Soul and Maka. Soul’s cheeks have turned light pink. Not such a cool guy after all, huh. Maka smirks a little.

“What are you,” says Patty, looking Soul dead in the eye. “Chicken?”

Soul swallows visibly. At that, Patty starts clucking.

Star cackles, sitting up enough that he can make eye contact with Soul. “Oh my God. Oh my God, is this your first kiss? And with _Maka?_ Dude. _Duuuude.”_

“Shut the hell up,” snaps Soul, and he’s definitely red. “Like you’ve ever kissed anyone, dumbass.”

“That’s so sweet,” says Liz, putting a hand to her chest. “So precious.”

“Stop these ridiculous noises at once,” Kid says, but his voice is drowned out because Black Star’s joined in, rooster-crowing with gusto. Maka rolls her eyes.

“Idiots,” she says, not bothering to hide her annoyance, and reaches over and grabs Soul’s chin to guide his lips to hers. He doesn’t protest. His eyes, usually so sleepy-looking, are wide open and very red, even in the dimness of the evening, and rimmed with girlishly long lashes the same color as his hair. His lips are chapped but warm.

Black Star and Patty are yelling enthusiastically. Someone wolf-whistles. “Mmkh,” says Soul, after only seven seconds, and tries to pull away. She buries her fingers in the soft, unstyled hairs at the nape of his neck and holds him in place with a frown. She’s going to make damn sure they win this dare. Soul puts his hands on her shoulders. “Mgnsn – WACHOO!”

Maka is left blinking, face covered in a fine spray of Soul’s spit. “Ew!” she cries, face flushing. Black Star and Patty are howling with laughter. Even Tsu’s cracking a smile, the traitor, though she at least has the decency to hide it behind her hand. Maka scrubs furiously at her face with the hem of her t-shirt.

“You stupid!” she snaps, rounding on Soul, on whose reddened face is writ some heinous combination of annoyance, embarrassment, and mild fear. “Why didn’t you tell me you were gonna sneeze?”

“I _tried,_ but you wouldn’t let me! It’s your fault, you dumb bookworm!”

“How is _your_ sneeze _my_ fault?!”

“Just stop, you’re drunk.”

“Oh, I’ll show you drunk,” she hisses, and snatches the bottle and manages to chug two mouthfuls before coughing violently.

They stay out until the second bottle is finished, and then halfway through the third that Patty pulls from the cheerful beach bag heaped at her sandaled feet. Truth or dare turns to never have I ever turns to them looking up at the sky and trying to count all the stars before subsiding into lazy drunken conversation. Even Kid had some, though it seems to have no effect. Stupid Shinigami genes. It’s only when Black Star falls asleep leaning against Tsubaki’s legs that the girl in question gets somewhat unsteadily to her feet and announces that they really ought to go home.

“I agree,” says Maka, and stands up also. Big mistake. The world seems to tilt violently, and she feels like she’s gonna hurl. The taste of shitty strawberry flavoring is strong on her tongue, mingling unpleasantly with that of alcohol. She manages to keep it all down, for now.

“Woah,” says a voice, and then there are arms around her. Soul. _What a good weapon,_ she thinks distantly. _Always has my back._ “You OK there?”

“M’fine,” she slurs. She tries to take a step, and wobbles dangerously.

They say their goodbyes – Maka manages a fairly coordinated wave, of which she feels rather proud – and go their separate ways. She makes it until they round the first bend the street takes before throwing up with gusto against the side of a building.

“Oh my God, I told you to take it easy,” Soul grouses, but he holds her hair back just the same. Maka heaves again. Wet noises against cobblestone bricks. Her body shakes. She holds her position, arms braced against the wall, forehead pushed into them, until her head stops spinning. She’s cold, she realizes distantly.

“For a bookworm, you sure are dumb sometimes,” Soul mutters, and a moment later something warm gets thrown over her shoulders. She straightens. The world rocks. She feels the jacket start to slip off. “Woah, careful with that,” says her weapon, and catches it, hand splayed on the middle of her back. Even through the jacket she can feel the warmth of it, or maybe she’s just drunk. “Don’t get your gross throw-up on it, shit was expensive.”

She snorts. It is a weak approximation of her usual full-bodied disdain, and perhaps this is what makes Soul help her put her arms through the sleeves. He pulls a handkerchief from nowhere and uses it to dab residual vomit from her face. Like a mother hen, she thinks distantly, and the thought in conjunction with her aloof, too-cool-for-school partner makes her giggle.

“What’s so funny?” Soul asks, and then shakes his head. “Actually, don’t tell me, it’s probably really stupid.”

“Yeah, it is,” she agrees.

Soul looks at the handkerchief and wrinkles his nose before his eyes dart to hers. “You’re not gonna throw up anymore, are you?” he asks, deadly serious.

After a moment’s thought, Maka shakes her head.

“You better not be lying,” Soul grumbles, turning his back to her and bending his knees. Maka stares at him, uncomprehending. “What are you waiting for,” Soul says gruffly. “Hop on.”

“This is embarrassing,” she mumbles, cheek pressed against his back, arms looped haphazardly around his shoulders. “It’s th’meister that carries th’weapon, not the other way ‘round.”

He shifts her a little farther up on his body. “No shit, Sherlock. Try not to get so drunk you barf next time.”

“Mmm,” she says, and closes her eyes. Silence falls between them for a time. Maka nearly falls asleep, lulled by the rocking motion of Soul’s steps and his warmth, vibrant against her front.

“Y’know, it’s kinda crazy,” Soul sighs, “that we can go out and kill monsters, but we can’t go into a bar and get alcohol that doesn’t taste like artificially sweetened gasoline.”

“We’re like thirteen,” Maka mumbles. “Alcohol’s for adults.”

Soul doesn’t say anything for a few moments. “You Death Kids or whatever they call you locals are fuckin’ crazy.”

“You got it backwards. It’s S’the rest of the world that doesn’t make sense.”

When they get to the apartment, Soul makes her walk up the stairs. She does, groaning and stumbling, but Soul manages to shepherd her through the door and into the bathroom to rinse her mouth. Once she's splayed out on her bed he undoes the straps of her boots and yanks them off, and her socks too for good measure. By this point she’s too tired to form words, so she gropes half-blind in the moonlit dimness of her room until she finds his hand and grabs it, a soft questing pressure. She hopes he understands.

(He does. Soul doesn't leave until she falls asleep.)


	2. flowers

The gash in his chest throbs, even in his sleep, and in the first week it wakes him constantly. He asks Dr. Medusa, groggy from pain meds, if she’s sure that his bones haven’t been cut, if the only thing holding him together isn’t bandages and heavy-duty stitches, and she always smiles gently and tells him _no, in fact your wound is healing nicely, so don’t worry and get some rest._

Maka’s there too, a pale shape at the edge of his vision. She comes to his room after her classes and does her homework on a little fold-out table she keeps on the wall beside his bed, sometimes reading to him from a textbook.

“You’d better get well soon,” she tells him one day, in a moment’s rest between assignments. “Otherwise you’ll never catch up on all this homework.”

He can’t help but roll his eyes, albeit fondly. Classic Maka. But when he looks at her she’s biting her lip and there’s a weird look on her face. He knows she blames herself. He doesn’t know how to tell her that it wasn’t her fault. That it’s his job, to protect his meister, his partner, his friend, and that he’s happy to do it. That he doesn’t regret his actions in the slightest.

He doesn’t tell her about his dreams, though.

Before his injury, Soul never really used to dream. Sleep was a brief intermission between one day and the next, nothing too troublesome about it. But now he’s plunged into uncomfortably vivid, pain-soaked nightmares, often involving Maka. He dreads it. He doesn’t understand it. He’d do the homework Maka leaves stacked on the bedside cabinet every night, such is his level of desperation to avoid sleep, except for the fact that it still hurts to move. So he lies there and stares at the ceiling, bathed in moonlight, trying his damndest to keep his heavy eyelids from sinking shut, except it always fails, he always finds himself in some new and predictably horrifying scenario, and then he wakes up gasping, adrenaline pumping.

Then one day Maka brings him flowers.

“There was an old lady with a cart of them on my way here,” she says when he asks, carefully setting the vase on top of the bedside cabinet. “I thought they’d brighten things up in here a bit.”

Soul can’t help smiling a little. “Thanks.”

“I bought you a new jacket, by the way,” she says. “Since, um, your old one…”

“Aw geez, Maka, you didn’t have to, it was just some dumb jacket I bought at the gift shop at the end of orientation.”

“I know, I know, but you wore it all the time. Don’t tell me you don’t think it’s not even a little cool.”

“Okay, you got me. DWMA merch is pretty slick.”

She shudders. “And _really_ expensive.”

When she leaves, he looks at the flowers, lit up by the setting sun. There’s some lilies in there, pure white, along with purple irises and hyacinths and a few carnations. The sweet smell suffuses the room. He breathes deep.

“Those are some lovely flowers,” says Dr. Medusa, clipboard in hand. “You’re a lucky weapon, to have a meister like Maka.”

“Yeah,” Soul murmurs, as she starts him doing simple arm stretches. “I am.”

That night, he dreams of his grandmother.

This dream is as vivid as any of his nightmares. The part of him that realizes that this is a dream cringes, braced for the worst. He’s younger and smaller than he is now, and it must be infused with a bit of memory too because when he reaches up to touch his face it’s wet with recent tears. His grandmother places a warm hand on his head and ruffles his hair affectionately. “Do you remember what this one’s called?” she asks, gesturing to the flowers she’s currently tending.

“Gladiolus,” Soul says.

“Smart boy. You remember things well.”

He sniffles, but his heart warms a little at the praise.

“But flowers don’t just have names,” she continues, sinking to her knees beside the flower bed. “They mean things, too. In the old days when you’d get a bouquet from someone it wasn’t just to look pretty. It talked to you, too. Your grandfather,” she says, turning to look at him with a wistful smile, “sent me the loveliest bouquets.”

“Does gladiolus mean anything?” Soul asks.

“Yes. Remembrance and honor.”

The sunlight is very warm against his back. His trousers are white and new and very expensive, but he kneels down beside his grandmother anyway and sinks his hands into the dirt. The air smells sweet, and the moment stretches, onward into infinity, until Soul is woken by sun in his eyes, streaming through the window. He scrubs at his face and leaves his arm over his eyes, breathing. The smell of the garden still lingers. His grandmother died last year, right before he left for the DWMA. He wonders, distantly, if his mother still bothered to tend her gardens. Probably not. It’s too late to plant gladiolus anyway.

One of the carnations in Maka’s bouquet is preparing to bloom. He wonders if anyone ever taught her the language of flowers. The bouquet is a riot of meaning. Lily of the valley for purity. Iris for wisdom and courage. Hyacinth for rebirth and constancy. Red carnations for love.

Unbidden, he thinks of the semi-drunken kiss she gave him. He exhales a chuckle, lips curving upward. Her hangover the next day was truly something to behold. He looks at the bouquet again.

He gets her one of her own later, when it’s her turn in the hospital wing, totally paralyzed and restless with it. When he brings her the flowers, the way her whole face lights up makes something warm and soft unfurl in his chest, though he keeps his own expression carefully neutral.

“Soul!” she exclaims. “These are beautiful! Bring them close, I wanna smell them!”

“Nerd,” he says, but obliges. She buries her face in them, inhales deeply, and then a moment later sneezes explosively.

“Oh no,” she says, and if she could move her hands, he’d bet money that they’d be covering her face. “I’m sorry I sneezed on your flowers.”

He exhales a laugh and shakes his head. “You should apologize to them. Those poor assholes probably weren’t expecting such rude hospitality.”

She just sticks her tongue out at him. He puts the vase on her bedside table. He stopped by the local flower shop and arranged it himself. Gladiolus. Goldenrod, for encouragement. And carnations, for distinction and love.


	3. jealousy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Soul Eater manga was first released in 2004.

It isn’t that Soul is _jealous,_ exactly. 

Maka is, beneath the know-it-all and vaguely homicidal exterior, a _kind person._ It’s one of the things he likes most about her. He remembers the first time he played the piano for her – it feels like a lifetime ago, now – how she’d smiled and clapped after he finished, even though he knew she didn’t get it, really. But the _wonder_ sparkling there in her green eyes, the open and gut-wrenching _genuineness_ of the delight and enjoyment brazenly plastered on her face – no one had ever looked at him like that in his whole entire life, and even though he didn’t let it show he knew right then and there he’d follow this girl to the ends of the earth if she asked him to. 

When she enfolds Crona in an embrace instead of dealing a killing blow, he doesn’t bother trying to keep the fond smile off his face, because that’s so typical of her. Always taking in strays. 

So that’s why he wonders if it’s the madness, not just in him but in the world now that the Kishin Asura is free and raging, that makes a hard knot of something nagging and awful weigh in his chest like a stone when he sees Maka and Crona together. The Little Demon doesn’t help at all, always whispering ugly little nothings in the quiet in-between moments when he’s brushing his teeth or picking at the guitar he keeps on the wall of his room, things like _she only cares about your weapon form you know_ and _she loves them more than she ever loved you_ and (worst of all) _she’s going to realize who you are and leave._

(It’s not like he isn’t used to people leaving. His father left him in all but name, preferring to shut himself up in his studio rather than deal with his children. His brother left him to go to college and make a name for himself. His grandmother left the planet entirely, going wherever dead people go.) 

But he knows, deep down in his gut, that Maka isn’t like that. She takes her commitments seriously. She’s his meister, and he’s her weapon. He has to trust her. Has to trust that she wouldn’t leave him unless something bad happened. Something really, really bad. 

_Like a new best friend?_ the demon whispers, not bothering to hide the malicious glee in his voice. Soul just grits his teeth and tells him to shut the fuck up. 

(He doesn’t _want_ to resent either of them, despite the demon’s urgings and his own idiot, uncool feelings.) 

But he can’t deny the reality - it feels like she spends more time with Crona than him nowadays. Soul isn’t exactly averse to that, but it still rankles, because Maka used to spend most of her time with _him,_ or at least _around_ him. But the kid’s had a hard life, harder than his by a long shot, and someone like Maka is good for them. In the short time they’ve been at the DWMA, Soul’s noticed them coming out of their shell a little more each day. It makes him wonder if _he_ was something like that when he first arrived, fresh from New York, a fish out of water. 

So that’s why, when Maka invites Crona over for a movie night one Friday after classes, he doesn’t object, despite the way his chest tightens a little. 

“I-is that okay?” Crona asks, darting nervous glances towards Soul, who’s standing a little ways behind Maka. He doesn’t really know Crona all that well yet. The sentiment is mutual. Soul cringes inwardly, equal parts ashamed and nervous and just a little _satisfied,_ damn it damn it not cool at all! 

“’Course it is,” Soul makes himself say, and hopes that nobody notices the way his voice threatens to crack. “It’s Maka’s turn to cook, though, so you might wanna, uh. Eat beforehand.” 

Maka rounds on him, her green eyes narrowed. “At least I don’t burn freaking _rice!”_

“Yeah, yeah, I was making a joke. Is that a crime?” 

“Well, it wasn’t very funny.” She turns back to Crona with a roll of her eyes. “Anyway, tonight at 7 sound good? We can meet you at the Skullbuster.” 

“Um…will there be many other p-people there? Besides you and…S-Soul?” 

Maka shakes her head and smiles reassuringly. “No, don’t worry. I know large get-togethers still stress you out. It’ll just be us three.” 

Crona darts one more glance at Soul. He’d smile, but his face feels like wood and his teeth would probably scare the kid half to death. He settles for a nod instead. One cool guy to another. Crona smiles hesitantly. “Yeah. That s-sounds great.” 

“You good?” Maka asks him, once they’re outside the school and have said their goodbyes to their friends. 

He shoots her a questioning look. “Huh? Yeah, I’m fine.” 

“You just felt a little off earlier, that’s all,” she says. 

Damn her and her soul perception. Soul just shakes his head. “Maybe your soul perception is just malfunctioning.” 

She whaps him with the paperback she’s carrying in her hand. “Rude!” 

“Ow, fuck you too!” 

They walk down to the Skullbuster after Maka finishes cooking, leaving a plate of brownies cooling on the counter and a foil tray of mac n’ cheese being kept warm in the oven. Soul doesn’t think he’ll ever get over their whacko naming conventions in Death City – did they _really_ have to replace the classic Blockbuster logo with a lurid blue and yellow skull biting a movie ticket with its cartoonishly sharp teeth? No, no they didn’t, but they did anyway, so here they fucking are. Soul shoots it a cautious look – it’s definitely more interesting than the usual, all things considered. Crona’s already waiting for them directly beneath the sign, a tall slim figure in their black – robe? Dress? Soul still isn’t sure what to make of it. He raises his hand in a wave as Maka calls out a greeting and bounds over to give them a hug. Soul ignores the twinge in his chest, gritting his teeth at the echo of laughter he hears from the demon. 

Crona still looks spooked at the contact, but at least they raise their arms and pat her awkwardly on the back this time. Progress. Soul offers them a fist. Crona looks at it uncomprehendingly. 

“Fistbump,” says Soul. Jesus, poor kid. “You make your hand into a fist – yeah, like that, now tap it with mine.” 

Crona does so, feather-light and hesitant. Soul offers them a smile and then withdraws his fist, wiggling his fingers as he does so. Crona imitates him, awkwardly and with a slight frown. 

“See, easy,” says Soul, cringing inwardly. He shouldn’t have done the finger wiggle, dammit, Crona wouldn’t get it and it just made them feel weird, ugh, why is he like this? 

Maka, meanwhile, is smiling at the display. She reaches for Crona’s hand, easily, naturally, and leads them into the store. Soul trails after them, trying valiantly to ignore the way the knot in his chest aches. 

“So, whatcha wanna watch?” Maka asks Crona, whose eyes widen in fear in the face of making an evening-altering decision. 

“It’s okay,” says Maka gently. “Soul and I are fine with whatever you pick, right Soul?” 

“Yeah,” Soul says, though secretly he’s hoping that Crona doesn’t pick a kids’ movie or a rom-com or something boring like that. He’d probably end up falling asleep, and then Maka’d get pissed at him, and he’d probably be woken up by a hardcover to the head. 

“Take your time!” says Maka. “Dinner’s already ready, we’re in no rush.” 

Crona nods but seems content to follow Maka around the store as she drifts from section to section. They gently shake their head at all the titles Maka holds up – mostly cheesy feel-good flicks or (dammit Maka) live-action Disney movies. Soul’s eye is caught by the horror section, and after a quick glance at the other two he drifts towards it. There’s a lot of DVDs on the shelves – they really need to get a DVD player, this is ridiculous – but there’s still plenty of VHS tapes. He hunkers down into a squat, examining some more recent titles, when Crona’s voice comes from above him, startling him in its proximity. 

“How about that one?” they ask, and Soul looks up to see them holding a notoriously gory and barf-inducing horror film. Soul hasn’t seen it personally, but he’s heard the stories. _  
_

Soul quirks an eyebrow. “You sure about that?” he asks, at the same time that Maka says “Uh, I’m not sure you’d like it very much…” 

“I want this one,” Crona says, a note of certainty in their voice. Soul suppresses a grin, seeing Crona in a new light. Maybe tonight won’t be so bad after all. 

They pick out two other movies, an action flick and some kind of weird documentary (palate cleansers, Soul thinks), before heading back to the apartment. Ragnarok erupts from Crona’s back at the mention of dinner and is only kept from devouring both his and his meister’s share by Maka angrily wielding her heaviest dictionary. They don’t talk much because everyone’s too busy eating. Soul won’t admit it, but Maka makes a mean mac n’ cheese. Even Crona goes back for seconds. Afterwards Maka grabs the plate of brownies and they all drift into the living room and settle on the couch, Maka in the middle. 

“Oh, damn!” Maka exclaims as soon as her butt touches the cushions. “I forgot to get popcorn! I’m going to run down to the convenience store – don’t you dare eat all those brownies, Ragnarok, or I _will_ kill you!” 

The door slams shut. “Stupid bitch,” Ragnarok mutters, and starts hassling Crona for a brownie. Crona, surprisingly, holds their ground, and eventually Ragnarok subsides back into Crona, grousing all the while. 

The apartment is suddenly too quiet. _Blair is out,_ Soul thinks, glancing around in mild panic. Crona doesn’t say anything. 

_Put them in their place,_ the demon growls. Soul clenches his hand into a fist, nails digging into the skin of his palm. 

“So, uh,” Soul begins, and then stops, because he has no idea where he’s going with this. He shoots a quick glance at Crona. They’re not looking at him, and instead are pressed against the hard metal arm of the sofa. 

Something in Soul softens. “Hey,” he tries again. Crona’s eyes dart to his before flitting back to their lap. Inwardly, Soul grimaces. He’s never been the best at talking to people or making friends, not like Maka. “Uh, did you manage to get all your homework done today?” 

_Ugh. Lame, stupid, uncool!_

“N-no,” says Crona softly. 

“Eh, no biggie,” Soul says, trying for jocular and coming out strained. “You’ve still got a whole weekend.” 

Silence falls again. The remote is on the coffee table, beside the brownies. Soul wonders if he should grab it and turn on the TV. Something, anything to diffuse this awkwardness. Soul notices out of the corner of his eye that Crona keeps glancing at him now, like they want to say something but can’t quite manage it. Soul sucks on his bottom lip. Maybe he should – 

“Do you hate me?” Crona blurts. 

Soul flinches, startled and ashamed in equal measure. “No, why would I,” he says, before his brain catches up with his mouth and he looks down at his chest, at the scar covered by the soft cotton of his t-shirt. It’s still a bit pink and raw, and it aches if he stretches his torso too much in any direction. He looks at Crona. “No,” he repeats, quieter this time. 

Crona stares at him uncomprehendingly. “B-but I…” They make a slashing motion. Their hand is trembling slightly, Soul notes. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “And I’d do it all over again.” He smiles, and it’s more genuine than any he’s given Crona thus far. “That shit’s in the past. You’re here now, and you’re trying to be better. It’s the soul that counts, y’know?” 

“S-so…you don’t hate me?” 

“Not at all,” Soul says. “I’m a lot like you, actually. People scare me too.” 

Crona blinks. “R-really?” 

Soul nods. “Yeah. I used to live in New York. When I first got off the plane I was scared shitless, didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. And now I feel more at home here than I ever did there.” 

They’re listening raptly, and when Soul finishes, they swallow. “How…how did you…stop being scared?” 

“I never did. But Maka and Black Star and the others are a big help.” He chuckles fondly. He feels lighter. The demon is quiet. “It’s what friends are for.” 

When Maka comes back, Soul and Crona are chatting easily and munching on brownies. They greet her and she smiles, evidently happy that they’re getting along. When she returns from the kitchen with an overflowing bowl of popcorn, Crona shifts so that they’re sitting in the middle of Maka and Soul. Ragnarok emerges to gorge himself on popcorn and brownies while Soul pops the horror tape in the VHS. 

The movie is so gory that it makes even Soul and Maka’s battle-hardened stomachs turn, but Crona and Ragnarok seem to be enjoying themselves. They make it through the documentary and about one-third of the action flick before Crona falls asleep on Soul’s shoulder. 

“They seem like they’ve really warmed up to you,” Maka says quietly over Crona’s head. “What did you guys talk about when I was gone?” 

Soul shrugs. “Nothing much, really.” 

“That so?” 

“Yeah.” 

Maka just shakes her head and smiles.


	4. laughter

On the day that Maka turns fourteen, the AC breaks. She’s woken up by Blair meowing morosely from the floor, and mumbles something indistinct that was supposed to be _please be quiet_ but instead gets drowned in the realization that she is drenched in sweat. She sits up, yawning, registering the hot, still texture of the air within the apartment as she does so, before Blair jumps into her lap and stares at her with wide, urgent golden eyes. 

“Maka,” she says, “Bu-tan is _hot.”  
_

Soul’s bedroom door is open when she finally shuffles out of her room. His window is open wide, curtains hanging limp and inert. The boy himself is sprawled on the floor in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, snoring softly. Maka shakes her head and grabs a pillow from the living room couch to throw at him. 

“Nnnnnurgh,” he grumbles, shoving it off. “Go’way I’m tired.” 

Maka averts her eyes when Blair shifts to human form on top of him, unabashedly nude. She wanders to the kitchen, rolling her eyes when he starts yelling a few moments later. 

He drifts after her eventually, once she’s gotten halfway through a bowl of cheerios. “Have you called the maintenance people yet?” Soul asks. 

“It’s Saturday,” Maka points out dryly. “They’re only open on weekdays.” 

“You’ve _got_ to be kidding me!” Soul groans. “There’s gotta be other companies!” 

“There are, but they’re out of our budget. Plus this one offers discounts to DWMA students.” 

Soul grumbles inarticulately and flops down at the table opposite her with his own bowl of cereal. “It’s _July_ ,” he says morosely. “In the _desert.”  
_

“You’ve had worse.” 

“No, I haven’t. This is _awful.”_

“Oh, suck it up, you big baby.” 

“I mean, we have more money now, don’t we? Because of…all the missions, lately.” 

She sighs. Ever since the Kishin was released things haven’t really been the same. The mission board has never been fuller. Reports of strange and disturbing events are coming in from all over the world. She’s never really been susceptible to madness before, but ever since that Clown…she suppresses a shiver. She’s been having nightmares, waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night because she dreamt that Soul was cut in two or Tsubaki had her soul yanked out of her chest or Black Star was hanging limply from a blade pushed brutally through his stomach. She puts her spoon down, appetite dulled. 

“We do,” she concedes, “but I think it’s smarter to save it. You never know what could happen.” 

Soul is squinting at her, brows furrowed. “You okay?” he asks after a few moments. 

Maka forces a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine!” 

“I can hear you crying at night,” he says flatly. “You’re not exactly _quiet.”_

“Oh, well excuse me for disturbing your beauty sleep!” she spits, and gets to her feet. 

Soul catches her wrist on her way to dump the remains of her breakfast down the sink. “I didn’t mean it like that, dummy,” he says gruffly. “I’m worried. About you.” 

Maka bites her lip. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” he grumbles. “If you’re not in tip-top shape then we can’t kill as many monsters and get more money to fix that damn AC. Happy birthday, by the way.” 

His face is a little flushed. She doesn’t know if it’s because of the heat or embarrassment, but it makes her smile anyway. Dork. “Thanks,” she says, and when she sits back down at the table she tells him about her nightmares. 

“Yeesh,” Soul says. “That’s some bullshit.” 

“Yeah,” she says. “I _know_ they’re not real, but they’re super vivid. I think it’s just residual effects from the Clown’s madness. They’ll go away eventually.” 

“Well yeah, but that’s doesn’t make them any less fucked up.” Soul frowns thoughtfully and then gets up and opens the freezer. A blissful smile crosses his face. 

“Hey, don’t keep that open for too long! It’s not good for the freezer or the food and it wastes electricity!” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Soul says, and then pulls out a big tub of vanilla ice cream. He plonks it down in the middle of the table along with two spoons. 

“What?” he asks, and then his face flushes again and he looks away. “What’s with that face?” 

“Ice cream?” Maka asks, nonplussed. “Soul, it’s 10 in the morning.” 

“Yeah, and? My gran, she’d…she’d always give us ice cream when we were sad.” 

She can’t help the laugh that bursts out of her. Soul’s eyes dart to hers and then he exhales a laugh of his own. “Yeah, it’s kinda childish,” he says. “But it’s hot and who cares, nobody’s around to stop us.” 

“That’s true,” says Maka. “Plus it’s my birthday, and that means I can do whatever I want.” 

They make it about halfway through the tub, and by the end of it Maka feels considerably happier than she did at the start of the morning. Even the heat doesn’t feel _quite_ so bad. Soul’s gran has a point. She wonders distantly if Soul would ever let her meet her one day, so she can say thank you. Soul and Maka move to the couch, and Soul puts on a movie they rented last week, and they’re crying laughing within a few moments at how bad it is. 

Tsubaki and Black Star phone in from Japan at around 1 with birthday wishes. “We should be coming back in around two weeks or so, maybe less,” says Tsubaki, her voice staticky with distance. “ _Tanjoubi omedetou,_ Maka-chan.” 

“ _Arigato,_ Tsubaki-chan!” Maka replies, smiling, and then recoils when Black Star bellows at full volume, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALBARN! I’M GONNA KICK THE CRAP OUT OF YOUR STUPID AC FOR DARING TO BREAK ON BLACK STAR-SAMA’S BEST FRIEND’S BIRTHDAY!” 

She laughs. “I can hear you, Star, no need to yell!” 

“I WANNA TALK TO SOUL!! DID HE PICK UP MY GAMECUBE? HAS HE BEEN PLAYING ANIMAL CROSSING FOR ME?” 

Maka hands the phone off. “Yeah, bro,” Soul says. “I’m pretty fuckin’ proud of it, too.” 

“It’s such a cute game!” Maka exclaims, snatching the phone back from Soul. “You guys better bring back a Japanese copy for us!” 

“Of course,” says Tsubaki. 

Kid calls them later that afternoon, inviting them over to his mansion for tea. Maka is all too glad to have an excuse to leave the stifling apartment. When she gets there, Patty showers her in confetti and Kid reveals an elaborate cake with a flourish. They stay until it gets dark, when the night is slightly more bearable, and then they make their way home, laden with cake and presents. 

“I’m surprised that Kid remembered,” Maka comments as they walk. “I don’t think I’ve ever told him my birthday.” 

“No?” Soul shoots her a glance. 

Maka narrows her eyes. “Did you tell them?” 

Soul shrugs. “Dunno. Maybe.” 

“You’re sweet.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” 

The sound of her laughter follows them home.


	5. we're not dating!

Nakatsukasa Tsubaki likes to consider herself rather observant. She notices things other people don’t – the spark of irritation in Liz’s eyes when Black Star laughs too loudly, the particular way that Stein ever-so-slightly favors his left side in fights regardless of the weapon he wields, and the peculiar orbit that Soul and Maka seem to fall into around each other. Their weapon-meister bond is as strong as it ever was – stronger, she thinks, since they reorganized into the Spartoi unit and Soul became a death scythe. It isn’t so much one or the other as them together lately, Soul-and-Maka, two parts of one whole. She came by one day to watch their training session, heard Soul call Maka “angel” with the barest hint of a smile on his face, watched the way Maka seemed to brighten all the way to the tips of her pigtails.

It was then that her suspicion solidified into a certainty. 

She wonders, though, if either of them even really know it, on a conscious level at least. If Soul is precisely aware of the degree to which his eyes soften and his mouth curves upward when he looks at Maka. If Maka is aware of the blatant upswing in her mood whenever she’s around Soul, the way her cheeks color and her hands flutter around him, brushing him, not quite grabbing. 

Knowing them, probably not. Tsubaki herself has never been in love, but she’s read a _lot_ of shoujo manga. 

She tries to untangle the situation in her gentle, oblique way on the rare occasions when they’re apart. 

“You and Maka have a very strong partnership,” she remarks to Soul one day, when they’re in the middle of a paired assignment on the topic in a Weapon class. 

“Yeah,” says Soul, and there’s that soft smile. “It’s…pretty damn cool, honestly. Without her I wouldn’t be where I am now.” 

Tsubaki feels a brief, awful pang – lately it seems that Black Star needs her less and less. In the back of her mind she wonders if there will come a day when he doesn’t need her at all. She pushes the thought down. “I admire that,” she says instead, and means it. “What you two have is a precious thing. I don’t blame you for being joined at the hip.” 

Soul shoots her a glance. “Joined at the hip?” 

_Oh, Shinigami have mercy._ “Well, you two do spend a lot of time together.” 

Soul seems to be mulling it over. “Yeah, I guess,” he says finally, and sets his pencil to paper. 

Even Black Star notices something’s up. “Say,” he says to her one morning, in the midst of headstand pushups. “You notice something… _weird_ about Soul and Maka lately?” 

Tsubaki takes a pointed sip of her tea. “Yes.” 

“Have they always been so…together? Like, every time Soul comes to game, Maka comes with him, and like, I know you girls like to do your girly shit or whatever in the bedroom, and that’s fine, like I love Maka don’t get me wrong, but didn’t she used to…stay home?” 

“She did,” Tsubaki confirms. “I guess even she’s feeling a little less pressure to study all the time, now that we’re Spartoi.” 

“Hmm, yeah. Who’da thunk, turbo-nerdette is chilling out. I think Patty owes me money now.” 

Tsubaki just laughs. “You might have to fight her for it.” 

Star makes a face and starts doing his pushups a little faster. 

Tsubaki calls Maka one afternoon, because her strawberry plants are going crazy and she has enough to share. She doesn’t pick up. Tsubaki chews the inside of her cheek, debating, and then decides to anyway, because she’s got errands to run in that part of town and it couldn’t hurt, unless – 

She shakes her head, a blush rising in her cheeks. No way would they have gotten to _that_ stage yet, unless some weird freak accident happened where they both simultaneously stopped being dense as brick walls. She sighs, and hops on her bike. 

She climbs the stairs to Maka and Soul’s apartment and knocks softly on the door, feeling a not-inconsiderable measure of relief when a muffled “come in!” wafts through the wood. She turns the knob and lets herself in to the apartment, closing the door carefully behind her. When she turns around, her eyes widen involuntarily. 

“Oh – um – am I interrupting something?” 

“No,” says Maka, looking up from the couch to smile at Tsubaki and wave with the hand not clutching her book, the one that was previously tangled in Soul’s white hair, free of product for once. It’s oddly intimate, even more so than their positions. “Ooh, whatcha got there?” she asks. 

“Strawberries,” Tsubaki says, not sure where to put her eyes and settling on a spot just to the left of Maka’s face. “Fresh from my garden. Um, I’ll just…” 

“Yeah, just put them in the kitchen. I’d get up, but…” She gestures to the sleeping boy on her chest and gives Tsubaki a vaguely sheepish, what-can-you-do sort of smile. Tsubaki returns it, albeit a little strained. Her brain is _whirring._

“Well, I’ll just see myself out,” she says. “Again, I’m so sorry – I should have called again – “ 

“Don’t worry,” Maka says with a wave of her hand. “Hey, sit down. Talk to me. It’s Saturday.” 

“Um, ok.” Tsubaki perches nervously at the edge of an armchair. 

“Hey, don’t look so scared. You didn’t interrupt anything, I promise,” says Maka, but her eyes are distant. Inwardly, Tsubaki narrows her own. 

“No?” she asks. 

“No,” says Maka, and shakes her head, dialing back into the present. 

Tsubaki’s eyes dart from Soul, snoring softly on Maka’s chest, arms splayed around her, body resting on top of her closed legs, and then back to Maka. She decides to just go for it. 

“Are you two…together?” 

“Huh?” Maka frowns, and then her eyes widen a little before she chuckles quietly. “Like… _that?_ No. No. We’re not a couple, Tsu.” 

_Could have fooled me._ “Hm. I was beginning to have my suspicions,” she says lightly, smiling a little to make it clear she’s teasing. 

“How?” Maka asks, smiling but to all appearances earnestly confused. 

“Um…call it a feeling.” 

“A feeling?” 

“You two are together a lot, after all.” 

“Yeah, I guess we are. That’s pretty normal, though, for a weapon-meister pair, isn’t it? Besides,” and her smile turns rueful and a little sad. “Men are…not very trustworthy.” 

“You trust Soul, though, don’t you?” 

“That’s not what I meant, Tsu.” 

Tsubaki presses her lips together. “Well…if, hypothetically, the two of you were to, um, get together – not that you ever will,” she says quickly, at the little crease that appears between Maka’s eyebrows, “but if you did say something to Soul – I think he’d be more receptive than you think.” 

Maka gives her a strange, guarded look. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Tsubaki repeats, and gives her friend an encouraging smile. 

Tsu stays a little while longer, chatting with Maka about classes and strawberry plants and Black Star’s new tendency to blast himself in the air with his soul wavelength in the middle of the hallways. It’s only when Soul starts stirring on Maka’s chest that she excuses herself, leaving with a wave. 

In the hallway, she sighs. Ah, young love.


	6. wings

“Let’s go flying,” says Maka, in the last moments of daylight. 

“Now?” Soul asks. 

“Duh, when else?” 

Soul shrugs and looks at Maka, who’s standing in his doorway. She’s wearing her usual skirt and combat boots, paired with mismatched thigh-high socks and an old sweater of his that’s too small on him now but fits her almost perfectly. Her hair’s done up in one ponytail instead of the usual two. Her bangs are getting a little long, falling into her eyes. As he watches she huffs a strand out of her face. Her eyes are very green. 

“Well?” she asks, jolting him back to the present. “Today would be nice.” 

His heart skips a beat. “Uh, yeah. Right. Yeah, let’s go.” 

He arcs to her hands in a flash of light before she can reply, cool metal solidifying in her waiting, ungloved hands. He hopes she didn’t catch the blush on his face, although his soul wavelength is probably a dead giveaway. Her soul brushes up against and harmonizes with his own. 

“You could’ve waited ‘til we got to the street, you know,” is all she says. Amusement trickles down to him, and he just grumbles inarticulately in response. 

“Jumping out a window is cooler anyways.” 

“Yeah, you’re kind of right about that.” 

Maka maneuvers his blade out the bedroom window and then throws him, swan-diving after him a moment later. Soul’s transformation is quicker than thought, and he’s there the precise moment she reaches for him, slim fingers closing around his shaft. She uses her momentum from the leap to swing herself back upwards into the air. Her feet land squarely on Soul. He senses her exhilaration, the joy bubbling up in her even as she laughs, the sound bright in the rapidly cooling evening air, and so he speeds up, taking them higher and higher, faster and faster, in ever-expanding circles, until they’re whooshing past the turrets of the Academy. They’re in a low-level resonance without even really trying and it’s _wonderful.  
_

 _Watch this,_ murmurs Maka’s wavelength, and she kicks their resonance frequency up several notches, so that now he can get a vague sense of her body’s position from her perspective. He feels her spread her arms and take a deep, centering breath. A moment later, her leg lifts up behind her, like a ballerina’s, higher and higher until it’s perpendicular to the other and she can grab her ankle with her hand. The other extends in front of her for balance. The leg she’s balancing on wobbles minutely, but their resonance is deep, and she doesn’t lose her balance. 

“Yoga with Tsu’s sure paying off, isn’t it,” he says out loud, letting how impressed he is bleed into their resonance. She relaxes her pose and twinkles warmly at him in reply, proud and satisfied. 

He takes her above even the academy, into the cloudless air, where the stars twinkle around the leering moon and Death City is a tangled mass of lights, arranged in vaguely concentric circles. Around it, the desert spreads in a flat, inky black panorama, an ocean washing up against the island, extending for miles in every direction until it meets the jagged peaks of the mountains. It must be cold, but he can’t really feel much like this and Maka doesn’t seem to be shivering. 

_This is incredible,_ her wavelength says. He agrees. _  
_

His wings make quiet whooshing sounds in the night air, as feathery and angelic as Maka wanted, though perhaps not as fluffy and cute. He did some reading on angels on one of the library computers in an attempt to get a clearer visualization of what exactly Maka was so hell-bent on being. Apparently they weren’t as cute as she thought, and were far more mind-warping and totally fucking horrifying. Angels, it turns out, are actually pretty damn cool. This high up it almost feels like they could really be one, an otherworldly creature ready to swoop down and bring avenging fire. 

“Angel,” he says, and her soul shivers happily at the nickname. “You’re becoming literal.” 

“Huh?” 

“Y’know, cause we’re so high up. You could be an angel.” 

Amusement colors their resonance. “Haha, yeah. Hey, let’s practice battle moves.” 

_Of course.  
_

He starts speeding downwards at an angle and then shifts in a flash of light from beneath Maka’s feet to her hands. She keeps the momentum going, hurtling feet-first through the air. She shifts their resonance to be even faster and closer, approaching battle frequencies. His soul opens up to receive hers, which settles there, a crystalline G tone, clear and all-encompassing. He matches his pitch to hers, a deeper, supporting echo; her thoughts are his thoughts, her will is his will. Soul’s blade becomes a translucent curve of light and her vicious satisfaction is his own as she swings his blade with the force of her whole body and sends a shockwave of power screaming through the sky. 

_You’re amazing,_ someone (maybe both of them) thinks, and then Soul shifts back into his winged form and catches Maka before streaking back upwards into the sky. Soul practices dodging, weaving, rolling, and looping through the air, while Maka experiments with kicks and punches and the myriad number of ways to position herself on him while he does this. It’s like a dance, weapon and meister moving in sinuous tandem, souls in perfect synchronicity. Maka’s an incredible athlete, really; they both wonder if Black Star could do all the flips and somersaults and acrobatics she’s doing right now and they smugly conclude that he totally couldn’t. They need to challenge him one of these days. 

It’s only when it gets well and truly dark and they’re both tired and in Maka’s case sweaty that they at last relax. They take their time getting back to the apartment, floating lazily down like a dandelion seed on the breeze, before alighting on the windowsill. Maka slips in first, and then Soul shifts back into human form and climbs in after her. Their resonance has all but dissipated but he still feels her presence, tugging on his soul. Maka’s hair is windblown and there’s a flush in her cheeks, visible even in the warm lamplit dimness of his bedroom. 

They smile at each other. The low, constant bond between them is warm and soft with something that Soul doesn’t care to define at the moment. She seems like she’s on the verge of saying something, or of reaching out to him, but then thinks better of it, and instead turns and walks deeper into the apartment.


	7. magic

“So, how was _your_ day?” 

“Job hunting not going well, huh.” 

“No! I got rejected _again._ Do you think it’d make a better impression if I put “savior of the world” or something in my header?” 

“They probably wouldn’t take you seriously.” 

“Well, I did. And they should. I could kick all their asses back to back on my worst day.” 

“Yeah, but ass-kicking isn’t exactly required to be like, a bank teller.” 

“Uh, robberies?” 

“Yeah, okay, you got me there.” 

“I’ve been thinking about college, honestly. Ridding the world of madness qualifies you for your GED, right?” 

“I’d check the record on that one. They didn’t exactly teach us calculus here, you know.” 

“Drat. Well, I’ve still got time, I guess. I’m still trying to figure out what I even want to go to college _for.”  
_

“Eh, personally I think college is overrated.” 

“Says you, slacker.” 

“Listen, if your freakishly large brain got any bigger I think it’d collapse into some kind of nerdy bookworm information singularity.” 

“First of all, that’s not even physically possible. Second of all, if you got any lazier you’d melt into a puddle of goo.” 

“Demon steel, thanks.” 

“I’m talking about your soul, dumdum.” 

“Yeah, okay, whatever. So, uh. Where are you thinking of going to school, if you do decide to go?” 

“Something Ivy League, ideally.” 

“That so.” 

“Yeah. Got a problem with that?” 

“No…” 

“Then what’s with that tone? Harvard too snobby for you?” 

“Yeah, actually.” 

“Okay, Mr. Cool Guy Rich Boy.” 

“Ugh, don’t lump me in with those people. They all have their heads so far up their own asses, it’s awful.” 

“You included!” 

“Listen, I was thirteen and I thought I knew everything. I’m much older and wiser now.” 

“You still forget to close the fridge door sometimes.” 

“Not the point and you know it. Look, what’s wrong with going to college in Vegas or something? You don’t have to spend nearly as much money and plus it’s _waaaaay_ easier to get into.” 

“Soul, are you seriously telling me that a community college education is comparable to an Ivy League school?” 

“Since when did you become such a snob?” 

“I mean, I’m right for thinking that the two are on completely different levels!” 

“Yeah, okay, okay. You’re right. Happy? But still, I mean a degree is a degree at the end of the day, isn’t it?” 

“Nope. A degree from Harvard could open way more doors. Plus I could rub it in Ox’s stupid face that I got into an Ivy and he didn’t.” 

“Heh, true. But like. What could you do there that you couldn’t do here?” 

“Harvard is the world leader in soul research, for one thing. I think they’d be super happy to have someone like me work there.” 

“Yeah, okay, but consider: DWMA has a lab too.” 

“Yes, but here we’re more focused on combat techniques and stuff like that. Besides, Stein just got the research division off the ground like two weeks ago. I’d prefer to go somewhere that’s been around a little bit longer first.” 

“How long have you been thinking about this?” 

“Hmm…probably since the beginning of the month.” 

“How come you didn’t tell me?” 

“Because it didn’t occur to me to until now? Get your soul untwisted, geez, it’s not that big a deal.” 

“Uh, yeah, it kind of is. You’re talking about moving a hell of a long way away.” 

“Well, yeah. It’s something new, and different, and exciting. Not all of us can get paid ridiculous sums of money to go to fancy parties and important diplomatic meetings, you know.” 

“…” 

“I’m sorry, that was mean. Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s hard on you, with the training, and I know you hate parties. I’m sorry. I’m just. Feeling _trapped,_ I guess. Everyone else is off doing cool things and I’m just. Here, by myself, because you’re gone most of the time anyway.” 

“…” 

“…I’ll miss you a whole lot. I _already_ miss you a whole lot. We hardly talk anymore.” 

“That’s not – “ 

“It is. You get home after I go to sleep and leave before I wake up. I think the last time we said anything to each other was _good morning_ three days ago before you hurried out the door.” 

“Yeah. Yeah. Not much different, then, if you moved 2,000 miles away, huh.” 

“It would be very different.” 

“…” 

“Are you even a little happy for me?” 

“Definitely.” 

“Thanks.” 

“So, uh. If you do go. Don’t forget about us back here, yeah?” 

“Of course not. I never could.” 

“Well, uh. If you meet some cute boy over there, or something – “ 

“Soul, wha – “

“Maybe uh. Just. Shit, I’m fucking this up, I’m so sorry, I know we haven’t spoken and I’m an asshole and I’ve really been meaning to say this for a while, but Maka, I uh. I.” 

The sun is setting spectacularly in Death City. Orange light lights up the surfaces of the buildings, giving them a soft and faintly unearthly glow. The clouds are suffused with pinks and purples and golds. Across the sky, the moon is rising, an opaque disc blacker than the deepest-buried spaces in the most secret parts of the human heart. The DWMA looms at the city’s pinnacle, its massive white staircase glowing in the dying light. Two tiny figures are visible three-quarters of the way down. The taller one has its hand on the other’s shoulder. Their faces are touching, front to front. They stay like that for infinite moments. In that time the second figure’s hand comes up to tangle itself in the other’s snowy white hair. 

_Don’t leave me. It’d feel. Empty. Without you here.  
_

“I know. I’d feel it too.” 

_I’m sorry.  
_

“Don’t be. It’s a big decision. Death City will always be home, though. _You’ll_ always be home. No matter what.” 

“We can make it work?” 

“Of course. Together we can do anything.” 

“You dweeb.” 

“You know I’m right. If we can kick a Kishin’s ass this’ll be cake.” 

“Heh.” 

The sun sets. The moon rises. Two figures descend the rest of the way down the stairs, hand in hand, soul in soul. 

_I love you.  
_

_I love you too._


End file.
